The_Gnat wrote:Trees in the forest and Woses. The only difference is that trees don't walk or talk. I believe that the trees become woses from some sort of magic or enchantment, maybe enchantment from elvish shydes or druids (since they are friends with elves) however it would take similar magic to necromancy because a soul is being inserted into the tree, that previously had none. And it take a lot of energy for a thing as large as a tree to walk and attack.

well, we could apply the same method as with drakes: have woses as trees possessed by something

The_Gnat wrote:Also what gender are woses. Technically they have no gender because they are plants, and they do not reproduce... but they look like old men. Maybe each tree looks like a different type of person when it becomes a wose. Maybe other types of trees can also become alive and they look like women? But that raises the question why do we not see any other types of tree become alive. Are there any other types of woses (besides the wose and the wose shaman) in wesnoth?

well, the answer to most of these questions is probably unknown

The_Gnat wrote:Moving on from woses, about gryphons. In order to train a beast as powerful and deadly as a gryphon you probably would have to trap it when it was younge and then teach it to let you ride it. Otherwise unless you could speak gryphon language it would think you were attacking it and fight you. But as the dwarves primary scout maybe some dwarves do speak gryponese? I have also seen the bear rider which is a reasonable alternative to a gryphon but not nearly as good, and the machines the dwarves have created, but i do not think that the dwarves would be that technologically advanced over the other races to build tanks and balloon fortresses.

small observation from mainline: even though gryphons speak somewhat like eagles, they can crudely mimic human/dwarf/ect. language and not just repeat what have been spoken.

The_Gnat wrote:Many creatures in wesnoth, even lizards like saurians are intelligent (to some extent) so why are horses, bears, wolves, gryphons and other creatures like them not intelligent? If evolution played a part then all the human like species would be smarter, but saurians are as much like human as horses are.

About Woses: there was an UMC named Story of the Wose (it is still on 1.10 add-ons server) which explains how they came to existence. Basically, it was some magic (quite similar to necromancy if I remember correctly).

James_The_Invisible wrote:About Woses: there was an UMC named Story of the Wose (it is still on 1.10 add-ons server) which explains how they came to existence. Basically, it was some magic (quite similar to necromancy if I remember correctly).

Hello, we briefly discussed languages before but i am wondering, in all the campaigns the various races have no problem talking to each other (orcs,elves,humans,dwarves): is this like in a movie where the Germans and Russians and Americans all speak the same language or do the main races of the wesnoth actually all speak similar languages, with only minor dialect differences.

The_Gnat wrote:Hello, we briefly discussed languages before but i am wondering, in all the campaigns the various races have no problem talking to each other (orcs,elves,humans,dwarves): is this like in a movie where the Germans and Russians and Americans all speak the same language or do the main races of the wesnoth actually all speak similar languages, with only minor dialect differences.

hmmmm, i doubt that there is a clear answer, but maybe they have a universal language with only minor dialect differences.

ForestDragon wrote:hmmmm, i doubt that there is a clear answer, but maybe they have a universal language with only minor dialect differences.

Yes, if (as we have postulated) all races came from a single source it would make sense for them to speak a similar language. However europe's massive quantity of languages implies that in real world circumstances cultures and languages can change quickly allowing for many languages in similar areas (this does not necessarily apply to wesnoth however).

The_Gnat wrote:if (as we have postulated) all races came from a single source it would make sense for them to speak a similar language

IMHO, the fact that every race has unit names with different sounds hints that they have different linguistic background. Probably there is some universal language like in Tolkien which is adopted by everyone in the end. I certainly find weird that in tRoW people from the Green Island arrive in the new continent and not only could immediately communicate with the locals, but even spy and understand the elves when they are talking with each other (which they wouldn't do in the universal language). I assume this is an accepted fictional convention.

The_Gnat wrote:if (as we have postulated) all races came from a single source it would make sense for them to speak a similar language

IMHO, the fact that every race has unit names with different sounds hints that they have different linguistic background. Probably there is some universal language like in Tolkien which is adopted by everyone in the end. I certainly find weird that in tRoW people from the Green Island arrive in the new continent and not only could immediately communicate with the locals, but even spy and understand the elves when they are talking with each other (which they wouldn't do in the universal language). I assume this is an accepted fictional convention.

I would not call it an imperfection. Jessene at some point says that she visited (with another prince from Green Isle) Great Continent multiple times and the elves also hint that they communicated with the visitors. Maybe she learnt their language and taught Haldric it (this is not said directly though).

All mainline campaigns take place on the same world (Irdya). Under the Burning Suns just happens in very distant future when the world (or at least the Great Continent) is significantly different. About the events that led to that change, the commonly accepted version says that Wesnothian mages in their attempt to destroy all evil (and prove their own might) have created artificial second sun. It went pretty well - the days were much longer, creatures of evil did not dare to walk the world during the day and the climate stayed pretty much the same. But it was not enough for the mages and (a few centuries?) later they attempted to create next sun. This time it was a disaster, it fell on Weldyn an caused a cataclysm which transformed the world into the state seen in UtBS.Some of this is said at some point in the campaign (by the merfolk and Ellyssa, iirc), the wiki also contains some info here and here (though the latter in not official cannon, just semi-official).

Different species get portrayed talking the same language for the sake of narrative, its not really indicative of anything just like leaders shouting to(and hearing) each other across what could possibly be miles of landscape.Once upon a version there was an era with alliance of light/army of darkness factions, perhaps an common/dark common language still exists as an derelict of that time. However if that'd be the case really doubt everyone in the world would have knowledge of such an trivial historical topic, so parts of it getting incorporated into various languages of the different species over the course of time seems to be the more likely explaination.

Re: WosesPerhaps it can be that when some elves finally die of old age their spirit fares into the fey and manifests as an wisp, that each is bound to an tree. This tree which is tied to that elf's lineage houses every dead elf's soul belonging to that bloodline, over time those spirits could able to fuse into an single entity, becoming the spirit of the shell that becomes an Wose then. Albeit sounds magical, this could be the natural course of their being, meaning the awakening of an Wose is not necessarily triggered by an condition but simply comes to be when it is ready. An alternate version could be that an Wose only then awakens when the bloodline of an elf is extinguished and there no longer will be coming any new soul to join the tree. In that case the tree-spirit manifests into an Wose, awakening into an avatar of nature driven by the fey within.

There had been Cactoses in some Umc, which are woses that have evolvingly adapted to harsh desert climate. or so i remember.One can expect there'd be as many different types of Woses on Irdya as it's different tree types, however them all being similar can be also explained via the influence of faerie world forming them into an certain shape irrevelant of it's original form(ofcourse besides the logical explaination that we do not have the artists to draw all those variations).Still, it would be nice to try and have an vaguely conifer-tree shaped northern wose, or an large baobab-tree like one for steppe regions.

Re: Gryphon LanguageGryphons wouldnt have an spoken language of their own per se, instead being magical creatures with heightened intellect they are more capable than your average talking parrot in understanding, remembrancing and reproducing sounds and sentences of humanoid species they are familiar with.

Re: What makes Saurians different than animalsProbably that they are an ancient species that have degenerated into their current form, having unending countless calamities and constant hardships over the millenia. Inspired from the real life theory that concerns why dangerous predator beasts of the past have shrunk in size and become more docile over time as they got hunted, i can say it has been (un)natural selection, eg. their constant wars taking the best out of their genepool leaving behind those of smaller stature.

Its in the vague really as in the mainline an definitive racial description for Saurians still hasnt been determined to my observation.

I have another question about Under the Burning Suns. In the future world of Iydra where there are two suns, has the entire land been scorched and is it all desert (or are there other countries that still have normal forest and grass)? (most of the land that is seen in the campaign UtBS is desert - is this because of the two suns making Iydra much hotter?

James_The_Invisible wrote: This time it was a disaster, it fell on Weldyn an caused a cataclysm..

So, "Fallenstar Lake" is a future map? Nice.That means, it should have a different ToD scheme, because it would be in just that moment in history, when there were the two suns in the sky, the third had just fallen down, but most of the landscape didn't have changed yet. People/creatures still had their usual aspect, evolution didn't kick in yet.